About those student loans, Daniel Indiviglio opines at The Atlantic that "while the president's heart may be in the right place, his effort isn't like [sic] to have much impact."
Obama's Student-Loan Order
Saves the Average Grad Less Than $10 a Month
Obama's Executive Orders
The president ... will create an executive order that has three components.
1. He will clear the way for borrowers with direct government loans and government-backed private loans to consolidate their balances. The White House estimates that this will cut the effective interest rate on student loans by up to 0.5%.
2. He will limit the amount of student loan payments to 10% of a graduate's income. (Currently, the limit is 15%.)
3. He will allow debt still outstanding after 20 years to be forgiven. (Currently, forgiveness occurs after 25 years.)
Those last two orders are really just the president moving up the timeline of existing legislation. Both changes are set to go into effect in 2014, but the president will order that they go into effect as of 2012....
Can an Executive Order Really Do This?
Some opponents of excessive executive power may question whether an executive order can really even accomplish these ends. The president is ordering a policy change for loan consolidation and changing the implementation date for previously passed legislation. Either of these actions could make for a really interesting court challenge, as both appear to stretch the limits of what an executive order was designed to do -- shouldn't Congress order such changes?
In practice, however, the orders will probably go through without challenge. First, it isn't clear that anyone who has standing to bring such a case to court would do so. The first measures may cost some private lenders some interest revenue, but they need to keep a conciliatory relationship with the government.
The latter two measures would cost taxpayers....
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The Patriot Update calls it a "Cash-for-Votes" Student Loan Policy.
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Meanwhile, perceptions of President Obama’s handling of the economy – the most important issue on voters’ minds – have fallen to a new low.
The latest national telephone survey finds that 28% of Likely Voters believe the president is doing a good or excellent job on the economy. While this finding has been hovered around 30% since early August, it’s the lowest level measured of Obama’s presidency.
The Rasmussen daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that overall, 43 pct of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's job performance; 19 pct Strongly Approve.
55 pct at least somewhat disapprove;
42 pct Strongly Disapprove.
And... it's Thursday, so new numbers are out from the Labor Department.
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Fewer Americans filed applications for unemployment assistance last week, while those on benefit rolls dropped to a three-year low, signaling limited improvement in the labor market.
First-time jobless claims decreased by 2,000 to 402,000 in the week ended Oct. 22, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington.....
... faster hiring is needed to trim unemployment, lift household confidence and spur the recovery.
“We’re not making much progress,” said Robert Dye, chief economist at Comerica Inc. in Dallas....
[....]
A report next week may show employers added about 100,000 workers to payrolls in October after a 103,000 gain in September, according to the Bloomberg survey median.
The jobless rate was 9.1 percent for a fourth month, economists projected.
“The pace of job growth in recent quarters has been barely enough to absorb the increase in the labor force and wholly insufficient to produce meaningful declines in unemployment,” Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo said in an Oct. 20 speech in New York.
“The number of new claims for unemployment insurance suggests only modest gains in employment in coming months, while measures of job vacancies seem to have turned down.”
Businesses reporting job cuts last week included Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen Inc., the world’s largest biotechnology company, which is firing 380 employees in its research and development division. Alamo Group Inc. said it will eliminate 77 workers as it closes a plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to consolidate operations in an Illinois facility....
Some companies are adding staff. FedEx Corp., operator of the world’s largest cargo airline, this week said it plans to hire 20,000 seasonal workers ... to handle a surge in holiday deliveries.
And the good news, such as it is: The proportion of those who believe the economy is getting better... increased to 23 pct in October, from 17 pct in August.
Each day Gallup asks Americans if they think that economic conditions in the country as a whole are getting better or getting worse.
October 2011
August 2011
Posted by: Mannie Sherberg | Thursday, 27 October 2011 at 02:53 PM